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Are you guys just trolling or really daft?
Warren Buffett simply state that if you increase the tax on the 'rich' it would not stop the 'rich' from investing. There is no hypocrisy in his statement unless he is dodging taxes .
Raising Taxes for the rich is simply implementing a law of diminishing returns for people's income but as long as there is still growth in wealth for people, people will still continue to invest.
Why do the rich need a diminishing return? Because it is pretty much a closed system and money has to come from somewhere. If the rich get richer, the poor will only get poorer; leading to an increase demand for welfare and increase in crime rate. To put it simply, the overall standard of living will decrease.
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On September 22 2011 19:14 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2011 07:01 Djzapz wrote:Warren Buffet fightiiiing! Small times TL experts with their lack of an education have cute little opinions sometimes :D Come on guys. This guy is not an imbecile. On August 17 2011 07:00 Kaitlin wrote:On August 17 2011 06:53 BuddhaMonk wrote:On August 17 2011 06:48 Kaitlin wrote:On August 17 2011 06:43 xXFireandIceXx wrote:On August 17 2011 06:41 Megatronn wrote:
If he's so concerned why doesn't he just give his money away to some poor families? o.o Oh my god. He's donating his money already. And he's donating 99% of his wealth when he dies. He's talking about what he thinks would benefit the US as a nation. Stop acting like he's some selfish man, cuz he's not. According to his statements that the rich should pay more taxes to the government, the fact that he's donating 99% of his wealth to charity when he dies is hypocritical. By donating to charities that HE favors, he denies the government about 60% of his wealth that would have been paid in estate taxes had he not made that selfish decision himself and left it to the government's better judgment. So your argument is that he's selfish because he's giving away 99% of his wealth? LOL We're talking about what happens when he dies. I don't know what religion you are, but short of re-incarnation, 100% of everyone's wealth is "given away" when they die. He is preventing the government from getting it's cut of 60% even though his comments call for the rich to pay more. He is being quite hypocritical by demonstrating the exact opposite, that he wants to control how his money is spent, instead of the government. A government too incompetent tax him properly may not deserve his money. Plus, he's talking about the system, not just himself. I love reading over 57 pages of text and really seeing gems like this. By pretending that government knows how to spend his money better (tax me more!) and then willing it away privately (wait, on second thought, government might not spend money better than me.)
I hate it when people bring up the credibility of the person as an argument instead of addressing the actual argument being presented. Even if Hitler himself said "Killing people just because you want to is wrong," the fact that hes being hypocritical doesnt make his statement any less correct. I remember in drivers ed, one requirement was to go to a DUI seminar where people convicted of DUIs told the students how driving under the influence has affected their lives and how we shouldnt drink and drive. You dont see people saying, "Well derp, you drank and drive so who are you to be telling us not to drink and drive?"
Its completely unproductive to bring up the person himself as an argument here. Besides, Warren Buffet may see other causes worth donating his money to. Where he donates his money has absolutely no significance on our current tax situation.
The very same government that ought to take more of the money from the rich is the very last place you want the money going, as so much of it is spent unwisely. Which is why I say the attention needs to be on how the money is spent and not how the money is gained.
This kind of discussion is much more relevant.
I agree that there is huge room for improvements when it comes to government spending, but how is letting the rich pay less taxes the better alternative when it comes to social welfare? The rich will keep spending it on themselves. Maybe theyll toss 0.01% of their wealth to a random charity every once in a while, but their jobs are to make more money while the job of the government is to serve the people.
If we are talking about who will spend the money better when it comes to social welfare, there is no doubt that the government serves the people much better than the wealthiest people of our nation. If you are arguing against government playing a large role in social welfare, then thats an entirely different discussion altogether.
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On September 26 2011 14:07 FishForThought wrote:
Are you guys just trolling or really daft?
...
Why do the rich need a diminishing return? Because it is pretty much a closed system and money has to come from somewhere. If the rich get richer, the poor will only get poorer; leading to an increase demand for welfare and increase in crime rate. To put it simply, the overall standard of living will decrease.
This portion of your post is wrong. Economics can be but is not always zero-sum. If it was, you'd have to argue that cavemen had just as much wealth as our contemporary societies do and only the distribution of that wealth has changed. It's possible for everyone to get richer.
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Obviously you can tax the rich to cut the deficit, and then it will be even less profitable to run businesses and some may go out of business, and others may take some portions of their money out of the market, but it's not THaT bad to tax them as long as you're just using this money to help pay the deficit while also cutting the spending. It becomes very bad when you start trying to redistribute this money because that in turn coordinates the private sector spending which is actually a bad thing... and of course if the rates went up people would spend less, and it would make the entire idea of stimulus seem rather silly, but in reality the rates must go up in order for people to pay off their debts, and in order for the market to once again accumulate enough resources for sound investments to be made.
You make the argument that taxing the rich will someone diminish the incentive to create businesses, but I think you ignore the fact that there are three types of business. Sole proprietorship, partnership, and corporation. The shareholders are the owners of the corporation and the CEO is an appointed manager. Taxing a CEO's income isn't going to stop the corporation from making money or diminish the ability to create new business... which a CEO wouldn't do anyway because they're managing an existing corporation. And in this whole paragraph, you ignore progressive (marginal) taxes. The tax rate going up on CEO style incomes (tax brackets above a million dollars), wouldn't cause the people's income to go down. The people's income is poor or middle class income and the left isn't arguing for most people's tax rates to go up.
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I saw a video not to long ago with Bill Gates saying he felt the rich needed to be taxed more, saying in his opinion he wasn't paying nearly enough compared to poorer people.
I'll make an edit when i find the video
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On September 26 2011 15:09 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 14:07 FishForThought wrote:
Are you guys just trolling or really daft?
...
Why do the rich need a diminishing return? Because it is pretty much a closed system and money has to come from somewhere. If the rich get richer, the poor will only get poorer; leading to an increase demand for welfare and increase in crime rate. To put it simply, the overall standard of living will decrease. This portion of your post is wrong. Economics can be but is not always zero-sum. If it was, you'd have to argue that cavemen had just as much wealth as our contemporary societies do and only the distribution of that wealth has changed. It's possible for everyone to get richer.
Saturated economy are zero-sum. At the moment, our economy (US) is not growing.. in fact, it is shrinking and shifted to other parts of the world. So unless we start growing again, the point stand that the "rich will get richer and poor will get poorer".
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On September 26 2011 14:02 johngalt90 wrote:
The last thing this country needs is to be taking notes from europe. No offense but you guys are in an exceedingly worse situation than we are, that has largely resulted from poor policy and excessive debt incurred from over bloated entitlement programs.
It cuts both ways. Europe could just as easily tell your treasury secretary to stop weighing in on its' problems when you consider the US govts farcical response to raising the debt ceiling.
Also, if I remeber correctly the US triggered the world financial crisis through the selling of toxic loans rated by US credit agencies as A+++++ investments. In addition, US banks gave mortgages to everybody even though they knew they couldn't afford them in the long run. Why? Because bank employees incentives were based around getting the signatures on the loan agreement, not on the persons ability to pay it back.
With abject failures like this in mind, you think the USA should be above taking notes from other countries?
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On September 27 2011 00:31 Deja Thoris wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 14:02 johngalt90 wrote:
The last thing this country needs is to be taking notes from europe. No offense but you guys are in an exceedingly worse situation than we are, that has largely resulted from poor policy and excessive debt incurred from over bloated entitlement programs.
It cuts both ways. Europe could just as easily tell your treasury secretary to stop weighing in on its' problems when you consider the US govts farcical response to raising the debt ceiling. Also, if I remeber correctly the US triggered the world financial crisis through the selling of toxic loans rated by US credit agencies as A+++++ investments. In addition, US banks gave mortgages to everybody even though they knew they couldn't afford them in the long run. Why? Because bank employees incentives were based around getting the signatures on the loan agreement, not on the persons ability to pay it back. With abject failures like this in mind, you think the USA should be above taking notes from other countries?
Well if you look at Europe's problems currently they mimic the start of the US's fiscal collapse, if things don't work out well there easily could be a run on banks in Europe starting with the obvious Greek to Italian to Spanish etc. Only difference is the case, which would still be inability of leadership but that's due to shared currency without solid leadership
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I read something interesting today from Malcolm Gladwell (author of Outliers, The Tipping Point, etc) in an article about NBA owners' claims of poverty ( http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7021031/the-nets-nba-economics ):
One of the great forgotten facts about the United States is that not very long ago the wealthy weren't all that wealthy. Up until the 1960s, the gap between rich and poor in the United States was relatively narrow. In fact, in that era marginal tax rates in the highest income bracket were in excess of 90 percent. For every dollar you made above $250,000, you gave the government 90 cents.
Today — with good reason — we regard tax rates that high as punitive and economically self-defeating. It is worth noting, though, that in the social and political commentary of the 1950s and 1960s there is scant evidence of wealthy people complaining about their situation. They paid their taxes and went about their business. Perhaps they saw the logic of the government's policy: There was a huge debt from World War II to be paid off, and interstates, public universities, and other public infrastructure projects to be built for the children of the baby boom. Or perhaps they were simply bashful. Wealth, after all, is as often the gift of good fortune as it is of design.
For whatever reason, the wealthy of that era could have pushed for a world that more closely conformed to their self-interest and they chose not to. Today the wealthy have no such qualms. We have moved from a country of relative economic equality to a place where the gap between rich and poor is exceeded by only Singapore and Hong Kong. The rich have gone from being grateful for what they have to pushing for everything they can get. They have mastered the arts of whining and predation, without regard to logic or shame.
In the end, this is the lesson of the NBA lockout. A man buys a basketball team as insurance on a real estate project, flips the franchise to a Russian billionaire when he wins the deal, and then — as both parties happily count their winnings — what lesson are we asked to draw? The players are greedy.
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On September 26 2011 23:03 FishForThought wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 15:09 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On September 26 2011 14:07 FishForThought wrote:
Are you guys just trolling or really daft?
...
Why do the rich need a diminishing return? Because it is pretty much a closed system and money has to come from somewhere. If the rich get richer, the poor will only get poorer; leading to an increase demand for welfare and increase in crime rate. To put it simply, the overall standard of living will decrease. This portion of your post is wrong. Economics can be but is not always zero-sum. If it was, you'd have to argue that cavemen had just as much wealth as our contemporary societies do and only the distribution of that wealth has changed. It's possible for everyone to get richer. Saturated economy are zero-sum. At the moment, our economy (US) is not growing.. in fact, it is shrinking and shifted to other parts of the world. So unless we start growing again, the point stand that the "rich will get richer and poor will get poorer".
Please link an academic source for your claim. I'd be interested in reading it.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On September 27 2011 00:58 semantics wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 00:31 Deja Thoris wrote:On September 26 2011 14:02 johngalt90 wrote:
The last thing this country needs is to be taking notes from europe. No offense but you guys are in an exceedingly worse situation than we are, that has largely resulted from poor policy and excessive debt incurred from over bloated entitlement programs.
It cuts both ways. Europe could just as easily tell your treasury secretary to stop weighing in on its' problems when you consider the US govts farcical response to raising the debt ceiling. Also, if I remeber correctly the US triggered the world financial crisis through the selling of toxic loans rated by US credit agencies as A+++++ investments. In addition, US banks gave mortgages to everybody even though they knew they couldn't afford them in the long run. Why? Because bank employees incentives were based around getting the signatures on the loan agreement, not on the persons ability to pay it back. With abject failures like this in mind, you think the USA should be above taking notes from other countries? Well if you look at Europe's problems currently they mimic the start of the US's fiscal collapse, if things don't work out well there easily could be a run on banks in Europe starting with the obvious Greek to Italian to Spanish etc. Only difference is the case, which would still be inability of leadership but that's due to shared currency without solid leadership
Sovereign debt troubles today is a completely different animal from what has happened in recent times in the US or Europe. There has been no fiscal collapse in US. (Some states within the US may be closer than widely expected or known.)
The collapse in real estate and commercial lending in 2008 in US had a comparable collapse of the same sectors simultaneously in Europe. The event was especially harsh in the peripheral countries of the EU. Popping of Ireland's housing bubble and the subsequent assumption/guarantee of bank debt by the Irish government is what eventually led to Ireland's bailout.
Between US and EU, there is a plethora of examples of what not to do. There is not a lot of positives to take away from either economic zone. No one should be taking notes from any other country.
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Russian Federation4447 Posts
Why doesn't the government spend less instead of asking for more money?
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On September 27 2011 04:57 Tien wrote:
Why doesn't the government spend less instead of asking for more money?
Really?
Because the people want certain things paid for; infrastructure, energy, a judicial system, a political system, military defenses, social security, unemployment help, food stamps for the most impoverished people, law enforcement, wildlife conservation, on and on the list goes.
Unless someone's storing the magical formula that will make the governing of 350M people more efficient than it is currently, reducing spending is asking people to give these things up.
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I agree with everything he says. But I think any proposal should have a higher income.. I think it was like 250,000...which is way too low.. more like 500,000 yearly income.
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On September 27 2011 05:11 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 04:57 Tien wrote:
Why doesn't the government spend less instead of asking for more money? Really? Because the people want certain things paid for; infrastructure, energy, a judicial system, a political system, military defenses, social security, unemployment help, food stamps for the most impoverished people, law enforcement, wildlife conservation, on and on the list goes. Unless someone's storing the magical formula that will make the governing of 350M people more efficient than it is currently, reducing spending is asking people to give these things up.
Very true. It's mind-boggling that people fail to see this.
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On September 27 2011 04:57 Tien wrote:
Why doesn't the government spend less instead of asking for more money?
We should be spending less and taxing more.
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Russian Federation4447 Posts
On September 27 2011 05:11 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 04:57 Tien wrote:
Why doesn't the government spend less instead of asking for more money? Really? Because the people want certain things paid for; infrastructure, energy, a judicial system, a political system, military defenses, social security, unemployment help, food stamps for the most impoverished people, law enforcement, wildlife conservation, on and on the list goes. Unless someone's storing the magical formula that will make the governing of 350M people more efficient than it is currently, reducing spending is asking people to give these things up.
How can we afford to keep paying for programs that are spiraling out of control in costs?
By 2015, medicare will grow another 200 Billion a year in cost. Must the tax payers carry this burden or should something be done about the cost structure of the program?
How can we justify 800 billion a year in military spending?
If we simply cannot afford excess programs and funding, why must we borrow / tax / print more money to pay for it?
These are questions Americans need to be asking themselves. They want all their entitlements but they can't afford to pay for it all.
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Russian Federation4447 Posts
You can't afford what you can't afford.
Printing / borrowing / taxing more money to pay for more expenses does nothing but mortgage the future of the country.
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On September 27 2011 03:43 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 23:03 FishForThought wrote:On September 26 2011 15:09 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On September 26 2011 14:07 FishForThought wrote:
Are you guys just trolling or really daft?
...
Why do the rich need a diminishing return? Because it is pretty much a closed system and money has to come from somewhere. If the rich get richer, the poor will only get poorer; leading to an increase demand for welfare and increase in crime rate. To put it simply, the overall standard of living will decrease. This portion of your post is wrong. Economics can be but is not always zero-sum. If it was, you'd have to argue that cavemen had just as much wealth as our contemporary societies do and only the distribution of that wealth has changed. It's possible for everyone to get richer. Saturated economy are zero-sum. At the moment, our economy (US) is not growing.. in fact, it is shrinking and shifted to other parts of the world. So unless we start growing again, the point stand that the "rich will get richer and poor will get poorer". Please link an academic source for your claim. I'd be interested in reading it.
Why do you need an academic source for that? Its self explanatory and relies on facts we all agree on
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EPT
